A few weeks ago I reached out to some lovely people in my world to see if they’d be a part of a special series here on The Thread. I’m asking them what threads they’re pulling lately. Questions like:
What are you curious about?
What are you learning about you?
How is your story shifting? How’s that feeling?
What brings you home to yourself when life feels uncertain?
What’s been a gift in this season? A challenge?
By the way — if something stirs for you in one of these questions, send me a message at hello@jennysmithwrites.com. I’d love to feature members of our Thread community in the months to come!
I’m honored to introduce you to Rev. Lara Bolger, a United Methodist pastor living in Pittsfield, MA with her husband Robert. She served local congregations for sixteen years in the Pacific Northwest and Southern California and begins a new adventure as a hospital chaplain in just a few weeks. She recently completed the Spiritual Guidance Program at Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation and is following her intuition into ministry as a spiritual director. If you’d like to contact Lara you can reach her at larabolger@me.com.
You might recognize Lara as the delightful human who wrote the foreword for “Still Here: A Poetry Memoir of Grief & Love” that I released this past February. Enjoy this reflection from Lara!
I feel as if the thread I’ve been pulling is my intuition. I got curious about my intuition last May 2022 when I was on a retreat in Mystic, Connecticut, and felt this overwhelming sense that I could live here. And by here, I mean New England. I called my husband and told him if applied for jobs in New England, I would be okay to move. So he did and he got one in Pittsfield, MA, in the Berkshires. By the end of June our house was for sale. I had never been here before, but as soon as we arrived, I felt like I was home. Following this intuitive nudge wasn’t easy. I said goodbye to a lot of people I love dearly in the Pacific Northwest and moved even further away from my immediate family who all live in Southern California. I miss them all.
I then noticed my intuition nudging me to a book that I had on my kindle but had not read. The book is Women who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. I was so happy to discover that the book is all about connecting to our intuitive selves, or the Wild Woman. I read a little each night before I go to bed. The book has opened me up in many ways, and one of them has been to nature, the actual “wild.” I am surrounded by woods and during the winter months looking deep into the endless number of bare trees every morning, and then walking into them was truly healing. Her book continues to be a healing balm inviting me to listen to my intuition.
One of the unexpected ways I’ve been paying attention to my intuition is through the game Wordle. One day I opened the app and felt like the word clown would be a good word, so I typed it in, and it was the word! I know there is a lot of luck and chance involved in this, but I discovered this was a great way to listen to what comes up inside me. Now, you should know, this is not a winning strategy. I decided not to play to win, but to play to listen to my intuition.
I’ll close with one more way my intuition has come alive recently. After we made the decision to move, I decided to let my hair grow. Until last week, I had not had a haircut for over a year. And for someone who maintained a short haircut, that’s a big deal! I asked around for salon suggestions and finally settled on the first salon I saw when we moved here. It wasn’t recommended by anyone, but something about it spoke to me.
The day before my haircut I was on a walk and watched this very old couple start to plant a row of flowers under their huge bushes at the end of their property, where it met the sidewalk. There had to be over a hundred flowers they were planting. They could not see these flowers from their house, only people walking on the sidewalk would enjoy them. At the end of my walk, I went by the house again and all the flowers were planted.
My heart was filled with gratitude for this labor of love.
The next day I went to the salon and the stylist starts shampooing and cutting my hair. We start talking and she shared that she grew up around the corner from where I’m living. As she describes the home, it sounds familiar to me. I ask her if her parents like to plant flowers, and she said oh yes, that is what they do now. I described the row of flowers, and she exclaimed, yes were her parents I saw planting the flowers! I told her how I was overwhelmed by their act of kindness and asked her to thank them for me. She was so excited to tell them. This encounter was such a gift.
It seems that the more I become aware of my intuition, I see how much my intuition is the one pulling or maybe sewing the threads of my life into a beautiful tapestry. By following this thread, the “wild woman” one, I connect to life, nature, people, myself, on a deeper level, the level of Spirit. What Clarissa Pinkola Estés calls the “River beneath the River.” It is an amazing journey!
Going through a season of grief or know someone who is? “Still Here: A Poetry Memoir of Grief & Love” hopes to offer a deep bow and a nod of understanding.
I sometimes think that I'm too old (71!) to start new things, but this year has reminded me that it's all flow. I was never going to take classes, or join church, again, but I have and find myself growing, learning and finding new people to love. I have been inspired by your leadership and open heart and this particular article is a reminder to listen to that voice within, it knows so much.
Thanks for sharing this. I’m learning to trust my intuition also, even when it’s scary. I wrote about it in my newsletter recently, with some Rumi quotes to reinforce that message: https://wendigordon.substack.com/p/listen-to-the-voice-that-doesnt-use?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2